Xavier Samuel Talks to 'GQ' About Newest Project

Nice. You're in Berlin shooting—wait for it—a Roland Emmerich movie about Shakespeare. Is this the same Roland Emmerich who did Independence Day and 2012? Please tell me the Rose Theatre blows up at the end of this one.
No, but there is a lot of green screen, a lot of special effects. They're really re-creating the London from that time. It's going to be quite visually spectacular. I play the Earl of Southampton. He's one of the only people that Shakespeare ever dedicated his work to.

So is Shakespeare gay in this movie?
There's a lot of speculation about that. Historically, some scholars have theorized that Southampton was Shakespeare's lover. But the film is about the authorship of the plays—who actually wrote them.

Who was it, then?
Maybe the Earl of Oxford. In this film, Shakespeare was some illiterate actor who was putting his name to plays he didn't even write. It's a thriller.